Show us your medal, Grandad

This symbol of a Nation's
gratitude,
acknowledgement of hardships once endured,
his courage now forgotten, cast aside,
in life uncertain nothing was assured.
Those wrinkled hands once held a greater pride:
this token now contains his brief reward.

The taking of a distant land by storm,
lost echoes of Britannia in her prime,
for things once deemed important are no more,
when everything is taken back in time.

How ghosts of old empires come creeping home,
through long forgotten deeds in Palestine